


for the future you (the one without me)

by sandorara



Category: Chinese Actor RPF, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) RPF
Genre: (Yizhan is endgame), Age Difference, An extension to Le Vrai Où (vogue film), Artist Xiao Zhan, Bartender Yibo, Bisexual Yibo, Bittersweet, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Long-distance feelings, Longing, M/M, Mentions of sex work, Personal Growth, Rich Businessman Xiao Zhan, Singapore???, Singer Zhou Xun, Slice of Life, Student Yibo, Sugar daddy Xiao Zhan, finding one's place in the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27975290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandorara/pseuds/sandorara
Summary: “Why Singapore?,” she’d asked him once, and he’d not known how to answer.An exploration of what may lie outside the few minutes the Vogue Film offered.
Relationships: Wang Yi Bo/Xiao Zhan | Sean, Wang Yi Bo/Zhou Xun
Comments: 30
Kudos: 93





	for the future you (the one without me)

**Author's Note:**

> That Vogue Film ticked every single box for the kind of het content I will absolutely devour. And of course it had so much potential for placing Xiao Zhan in it. So. Both. Both is good. This actually came to be from the single question of "but who paid for his Chanel?". 
> 
> Disclaimer: I have spent a grand total of five days of my life in the country of Singapore and my main SG-source has spent most of her life away from there so, if anything is weird please do let me know!
> 
> (Please do watch the shortfilm first, for example here: https://youtu.be/5DMNtmdcxnM)

The suitcase felt light in his hands, like it shouldn’t be possible for everything he’d be taking along to weigh so little. But it did. He guessed it would not even come close to the weight limit of the airline, which was of course a relief. But in that moment, he felt small and lonely. That one suitcase contained his whole life, like there was nothing more to him.

He took one last glance around the room, as if to say good-bye. It was completely bare, all the boxes he’d packed long since taken away and discarded, the only things remaining now were the wonky bedframe and the desk he’d always hated. The lightbulb near the door was still flickering next to him, the way it had been for the last month. He would not be the one to change it, that would be the job of whoever would make this room their home once he was gone.

Which he should already have been. He had a plane to catch.

So Yibo swallowed once, bit his lip, and walked out.

He thought it would feel more exciting, to finally make the move he’d been aiming for for so long. But there was nervousness gnawing inside him, and he did not want to think too hard on everything that he was leaving behind. He did not want to think about everything that could have been. He’d started this journey for himself, and he would continue it. For himself. So he stepped outside and closed the door behind him, one final time. And he pulled the suitcase that really should have been heavier behind him as he walked towards the train station. One final time.

☙☙☙

“Why Singapore?,” she’d asked him once, and he’d not known how to answer.

It was not that he was ashamed, or that he thought she would have judged him. It would not have affected her image of him, of that he was sure. What they had was never like that. He was sure she knew he’d been working hard, that he’d had other side hustles beside the bar all along, and they’d spent many nights like that, slowly taking part in each other’s troubles. So perhaps it had mostly been that he had not wanted the location to matter. It could be another part of China, it could be Singapore, it could be an entirely different continent. Anywhere would be fine, and he’d hoped she would agree.

The simple G&T had tasted bitter in his mouth but her fingers resting on his arm had been soft and warm. He’d found the words eventually --to say that he was just going by a feeling.That he’d applied to some other places too, but that Singapore felt most right.

She’d smiled, patted his arm and told him it sounded good. That she was proud of the steps he was taking, and that she was sure they’d both succeed in their dreams. To get away.

He’d fallen asleep there at the table not long after that, her fingers softly playing with his hair. Even now, he still wondered if he should have kissed her that night. If it would have made a difference later.

The next morning he’d woken up on the sofa in the backroom, covered by one of the blankets meant for customers sitting outside. There had been three texts from Xiao Zhan waiting on his phone screen.

☙☙☙

His seat was by the window, an elderly couple occupying the two other seats of the row. He knew this meant he would not be heading to the bathroom more than absolutely necessary over the six hour flight from Beijing to Changi. With a sigh, he slid his earbuds in, flipped through some music on his phone, before pressing play and closing his eyes.

A new life was waiting for him.

For three years he had been actively working towards this. Maybe it would have felt bigger, if it had been the first time he took a life-altering step like this. If he hadn’t already run away once to find freedom to be what he wanted to be, only to end up lost and trapped.

He’d wanted to be an idol once, or at least a professional dancer. And he’d been good at it, good enough to be given a chance. And so he’d left home to train, never finishing school. Years of hard work later, that dream had been brutally crushed and he’d found himself without a safety net or merits that would make anyone want to hire him. He’d been four months from turning eighteen at the time, and four months was long enough for desperate measures.

Eventually a small, dingy bar had hired him to wash their dishes, and among its clientele he had found the first older man who wanted to pay him to get to spoil him. Finding more people like him, people who would pay for the company of a pretty boy, who knew how to dance and carry himself, even if his presentation was a little rough around the edges, had been easy. Some had been women, some had been men, and sometimes they’d just wanted to share a moment over a drink, sometimes they’d wanted someone to give gifts to, and sometimes they’d wanted more. Yibo had never been picky, not when it had paid for his rent.

The first bar had become a second, one where he’d been able to venture out of the back kitchen. One where he’d been allowed to learn, figuring out the art of mixing drinks one glass at a time. He’d found joy in learning, and looking back he could tell that’s what had made him decide to find a way to finish school.

The second bar had become a third and last one, and there he’d been hired as a bartender. He’d been dressed in the best clothes he had, all paid for by some rich gege or jiejie, and he’d been able to become part of the posh image, to slot in just well enough to be comfortable and to dare believe that life was stable enough to dream.

That was where he’d met her.

☙☙☙

It had been a slow fall, a gentle tumble down the hill. Little by little, to the rhythm of her singing, to the pull of her husky and gentle voice. To the way her eyes would sparkle, and the way the soft lighting of the bar would illuminate her, making her shine. The way her presence would fill the entire room, drawing everyone in.

Even Yibo.

He’d watched her from behind the bar counter, watched her quietly as he’d dried glass after glass. Night after night. There had always been some kind of magic to her, like she was bigger than that place. Like she should not be confined to a small, albeit fancy, corner bar in the outskirts of Beijing. The smallest hint of an ever-present melancholy in her voice, even as she outshone the lights directed at her. Yibo could never pull his eyes away.

She’d performed there for many years, he’d heard, and a large part of the clientele would come to the bar for her. She seemed to be as definite a presence of the night there as the cocktails on the bar counter. Sometimes she’d sing old classics, vintage melodies that would transform the atmosphere to that of days long past. Days Yibo had never lived. Sometimes she’d sing her own creations. It was those that Yibo liked the most.

He kept looking, and then one day, some months after Yibo had started manning the bar, she looked back. And then another few weeks later she opted for the bar counter instead of her usual corner table, armed with a soft smile, inquiring eyes and words directed at him. He never stood a chance.

In her words he found wisdom, inspiration and a shared sense of weary restlessness. In the way she sighed as she stated she could not remember for how long she’d been singing there he sensed a wish to leave. In her way of always asking for something new to drink, he sensed a wish for change. And the bitter aftertaste of the words “I do love music, and I am lucky enough that it pays my bills” lingering in the air between them filled his lungs as he breathed in, and stayed there.

That she had spent double the time on this planet that he had never mattered. When it was the two of them, on either side of a bar counter, the rest of the world disappeared.

And eventually, Yibo began to hope.

☙☙☙

Xiao Zhan was always different.

Different, despite the fact that the location of their meeting had not been so. Just another high class bar with sleek interior and each designer bar stool costing more than Yibo owned. It was the perfect spot to find what he had been looking for, and he’d found Xiao Zhan.

But like with all the others, he never really did allow himself to _look_. It was better that way.

Xiao Zhan never asked for much, and the gifts he gave were always oddly thoughtful. Useful and practical things, despite being horrendously expensive. A watch, white shirts that could only be told apart from his own cheap ones by the tag and the soft, luxurious feel of the fabric against his skin. Shoes made of real leather, glossier than his perfectly polished bar counter. Even some household items. When his phone finally gave in, it was Xiao Zhan that took him to buy a new one, one that wasn’t on a monthly payment plan.

And all he had wanted was to paint Yibo.

Compared to many others, compared to _her_ (a comparison Yibo refused to make), Xiao Zhan was young. Only six years Yibo’s senior. Even after two years of occasional mutual benefits Yibo did not know much about the man — where his money came from, why he was still in business and not making a living off his art, or why he kept supporting Yibo while asking for so little in return.

Yibo had tried once, to give himself to the taller, objectively beautiful man. He had been half undressed, from where he had posed by the piano in Xiao Zhan’s large and strangely bare and impersonal flat, and the few steps to the artist himself had been quick and easy.

“Yibo, you don’t have to,” he’d said, and Yibo had frowned, pushed once more, thighs straddling Xiao Zhan. A hand on his shoulder had pushed, and there had been something sad in the man’s eyes. For just long enough a moment to make him back off in a rush, Yibo had taken it as pity. And by the time he realised that was not it, that the feeling he had seen was something else, a blanket had already been wrapped around him and Xiao Zhan had gone off to prepare tea.

He never let himself look closely enough again.

☙☙☙

Changi airport was busy in a different way than Beijing ever was. The bustle of people meeting him was more diverse than anything he’d ever seen at home, even before he made it through immigration. His student visa, filling a whole page of his passport was carefully scrutinised and his embarkation card double and triple checked. It had been filled out with Xiao Zhan’s address, as he did not have one of his own yet. “I’m staying with a friend,” he explained quickly, when the border control asked him about it in Mandarin, despite having first greeted him in English.

And once across the border, his eyes found Xiao Zhan, waiting for him with a take-away cup of coffee in his hand. His bag was exchanged for the cup, and Yibo found himself smiling at the taste of the coffee, just the way he liked it.

“Is this all you brought along?,” Xiao Zhan asked, and Yibo nodded. That bag housed all he needed, anything else he’d buy there. This was a new beginning.

“Well, let’s go then,” Xiao Zhan said with a wide smile. And was the light different here or had his smile always been that bright? Yibo stumbled forward behind him, out into the hot, clammy air of Singapore. It smelled different, it _felt_ different, and it made something unfurl in Yibo’s chest as he breathed in.

He was ready for this, he’d waited for this. He’d fought years for something, _anything_ , like this.

Perhaps it was time to believe it was actually happening. He smiled again, took a deep breath, and followed Xiao Zhan to the car park.

☙☙☙

“Xun-jie,” he’d started once, and she’d hummed next to him, bare feet tucked in under his thighs on the back room sofa, her high heels abandoned on the floor. His head was resting against the back of the sofa, and his fingers couldn’t seem to leave his earrings alone.

“If you were… offered a way out, to somewhere far away from here…”

He paused, and he could feel her toes poking him, urging him to continue.

“By someone that you… maybe already rely on a little too much. Would you... take it?”

She hummed again, and leaned her head on her outstretched arms in that way that made his fingers itch to touch her neck.

“Hypothetically,” she asked. He nodded.

“I think so,” she said. “Yes. I would.” He turned his head to look at her, and she was staring into some space far away, a small smile on her lips. His entire chest had felt warm.

☙☙☙

“These are the ones I’ve looked at for you, they should all be… within the budget you mentioned.”

A small stack of paper was placed in front of him on Xiao Zhan’s shiny dining table. There were floor plans, and lists of amenities or lack of them. Addresses and location descriptions that told him nothing, and numbers that made his head spin. He frowned, whispered a ‘thank you’, and started browsing. He could feel Xiao Zhan sit down across from him, but Yibo kept his focus on the papers without taking in any actual information.

“No one’s using that spare bedroom you know,” he spoke finally, and Yibo thought back to the way the bed had been neatly made with a towel placed on it, to how there had been a glass and a jug of water waiting ready on the bedside table. To how the air conditioner had been lowly buzzing, keeping the room a milder temperature. To how the closet had already contained two short-sleeved shirts, perfectly his size.

(”I thought they’d suit you,” Xiao Zhan had said, and like always Yibo had raised an eyebrow, smiled and thanked him. The same way he’d always thanked his benefactors.)

His fingers played over the papers, and then he responded. “I’d like to get my own place.”

Xiao Zhan did not sigh, yet Yibo could feel his wish to do so in the air. “Of course. I’ll arrange for a viewing of any you like.”

Yibo smiled.

He was grateful, and he did under no circumstances underestimate the effect of all the help he had, and still did, receive from Xiao Zhan. No, he knew how he got here and he’d make sure to pay his dues in any way he could, any way Xiao Zhan would want. But his intention remained to separate himself from his past back in Beijing, to get an education, to build his own life, wherever it would lead. He wanted to be able to stand on his own two legs, even if that would mean Xiao Zhan would need to find a new model eventually.

“Thank you, Zhan-ge,” he said, and looked through the papers again.

☙☙☙

He sometimes wondered if perhaps he’d been naive, to ever think there was a future where he could be by her side, somewhere else. That their entire shared existence was not based on their positions, on opposite sides of that bar counter. That the glossy, polished line did not also separate them even when it physically wasn’t there. Like when her hand landed on his arm as she laughed at something he’d said. When her eyes crinkled and he couldn’t look away.

Many would consider him difficult to socialise with, awkward, rude and cold, and often he had let that work in his favour, used it as protection, as a shield. Separating him from what could hurt him.

With her, that defense line had been dismantled, and he’d thought it was mutual. But he understood now, that even if it had been, there were many more lines and borders separating people than the ones he had constructed himself.

And like she knew so little of him outside that bar, so did he of her.

He understood what she had meant now, but he also understood that the Kármán line was a man-made concept, and that it really did not separate anything in reality. That the different layers of the atmosphere bled together, more like a gradient. Separate, but mixed. And that people all had these layers, and however deep you would pierce, you may see a different composition than someone else would be allowed to see.

And that perhaps that bar had been an atmospheric layer of its own. One, in which their unique compositions of experiences and thoughts could co-exist and breathe the same air, but the further outside the door, the thinner that layer became, bleeding into another, much more vast space.

Singapore was like a different planet entirely.

☙☙☙

The room he ended up renting was small and stuffy, and it had him share common areas with five other people. It was the closeness to the MRT and several bus lines despite the reasonable price that made up for the vague cigarette smell that lingered in the walls.

Yibo had seen worse, and it would be nothing more than a temporary space of his own, just like his room in Beijing had been.

(Xiao Zhan had asked four more times, whether Yibo was really sure. He’d offered to let him pay rent for the guest room, offered to step in as a guarantor so Yibo could get a slightly better place. Yibo had shaken his head, smiled and said “I’ll visit you”.

Of course, the only one hurt by those words had been himself.)

The few personal things he’d brought barely made the room look inhabited, but they were a start. His clothes were neatly folded away in the small wardrobe, most of them gifts and often far too covering for the tropical climate. The tuberose she’d given him once, now dried and pressed and protected by a clear plastic pocket, and the one small lego technic build he’d kept, one he’d completed with one of his agency brothers so many years before were placed on the little shelf above his desk.

Before finally falling asleep, deep into the early morning of his first night in this new room, he wondered if it would be too vain to ask for one of Xiao Zhan’s paintings of him for his wall.

☙☙☙

”Dear Xun-jie,” he started his first letter, only to pause for a long moment, to think of what he really wanted to write. That he missed her, that he wished she was there with him, that a small part of him regretted leaving, that a small part of him wanted to return, even though he knew she wouldn’t be there. That he wished he’d kissed her. That he hoped she thought of him now and then.

He wrote none of those things.

He wrote about having found a place to live, having settled in a little, and about when his classes would start. He wrote about the orientation coming up, and about his cautious excitement. About how though he could get by with Mandarin easily, he was doing daily English lessons on his phone. He wrote about how different the weather was compared to Beijing, and how the air felt to breathe. And then he wrote about the places he’d like to go see, and where he’d take her once she visited.

And he thanked her for her support, her encouragement that had helped him take the steps needed to come here.

He did not write about the support he still had. He did not write about Xiao Zhan.

☙☙☙

It did not take long in the country to get an idea of just how well off Xiao Zhan really was, and again it made Yibo wonder why he was not simply spending his time doing what he seemed to like best —making art. His condo was spacious and luxurious, and unlike the apartment in Beijing it felt lived in, it had personality. He’d known Xiao Zhan was flying back and forth between somewhere else the whole time he’d known him, but that _elsewhere_ seemed to be _home_ had been a new revelation.

There was art hanging on all walls, but the art supplies themselves seemed to all be neatly kept in one room. Yibo had found several pictures of himself, as he’d explored the older man’s home, and it was funny to think that Xiao Zhan had brought them over all the way from China.

Sometimes he wondered if he, himself, was not the same. What did Xiao Zhan really get out of helping Yibo? He was kind, caring, and Yibo had always enjoyed his company. And he knew Xiao Zhan watched him, more than an artist watching his subject, but even when offered, he had declined. Yibo had always felt… _respected_ by him.

Perhaps that was why it had been so easy to take the opportunity when it had been presented to him. To latch onto it with all his dreams and hopes, to cling to the client he’d let stay around longer than any other, and to throw himself out into the world.

He could be a piece of art to look at, if Xiao Zhan was the one looking.

(And maybe, he’d always thought it was worth it, be it with or without her, because he wouldn’t be alone.)

☙☙☙

The journey to the university campus took Yibo between forty-five minutes to an hour, depending on traffic and bus schedules. The buses were all air-conditioned, so he found he did not mind the travel at all. There was music on his phone and notes to review. The campus itself was— Well, large and impressive, but Yibo did not have experience of any other universities to compare it to. Others would claim it good, Yibo would assume they were right.

He threw himself into his studies with a motivation to learn and get better that he hadn’t truly felt for a long time. Yes, all the work to get to this point had been through pure effort, he had spent years doing courses to make up for never finishing school, he’d pushed and barely slept sometimes to get a diploma and be able to apply for universities in the first place. But this felt different, somehow. Studying full-time felt more like when he was training, before everything fell apart. Like it wasn’t just a means to an end anymore, but an adventure in itself. One where he could shine.

(And the extra-curricular dance classes he signed up for made his whole body come alive again, in ways he had not even realised he’d missed.)

The first time Xiao Zhan texted him outside of their usual weekend schedule, asking whether he could pick Yibo up when lectures finished, Yibo stared at the message for a good four minutes, before responding with a simple ‘sure’. And then he’d shown up in his car and automatically opened the passenger side door to let Yibo in and for one moment Yibo had understood the feelings of every movie heroine that had ever been picked up in front of her friends and been embarrassed about it. Well, Acquaintances. Possible future friends.

Xiao Zhan had taken him out to eat. Nowhere fancy, more the exact opposite: a normal hawker’s stall in the middle of a bustling food court, so packed with people they could barely hear each other. And even so, he had spent the entire meal asking questions, showing genuine interest in how Yibo was doing, how he was settling in. About his studies, about friends, about whether he missed home already.

And when Yibo asked “Why this?,” Xiao Zhan looked down for a moment, then spoke.

“Out here it’s not about painting.”

All Yibo could do was to swallow, and nod, eyes locked to the way Xiao Zhan’s eyes crinkled when he smiled like the sun itself.

☙☙☙

Zhou Xun’s letters were short, but filled with personality. She did not reveal much of where life had taken her, or what she was doing now, but the return address was in Shanghai. Clearly, Yibo’s first letter had found its way to her regardless of her location at the time.

When her first letter arrived he felt a sparkling joy that quickly drowned in a pool of longing and sadness. The second time, many weeks later, it felt more like the other way.

Like him, she was also out there somewhere, finding her own path after so long. And despite the lines keeping them separated, despite the different compositions of their existences, he still got to share the journey with her through these small letters.

She sent him small snippets of poems that could be lyrics, a cocktail recipe, and then, something Yibo would frame and put on his wall and cherish forever — a drawing of him behind their bar counter, leaning on it and smiling softly, like he always had been, when watching her. Like a small moment of their time, kept alive on a piece of paper.

It was mostly a sketch done in ink, nothing elaborate nor impressive in technique, but it was _him through her eyes_ and he found himself floored by it.

Yibo through her eyes looked happy and beautiful.

☙☙☙

It was days later that he found himself for the first time truly looking at one of Xiao Zhan’s paintings of himself. He took the chance while the man was cooking, as he so often did for them these days. Oftentimes, Yibo would only serve as a base for Xiao Zhan’s art, areference, and the end result would not be recognisable as him. But there were some that were simply him, perfectly recognisable, and it was one of those he strayed to, where it leaned against the wall in Xiao Zhan’s work room.

He looked, and he saw himself, much more radiant than he’d ever felt in his life. And Yibo was not dumb, he knew he was attractive, he knew he’d been given a face that most would call beautiful, pretty, and he’d used that to his advantage over the years. He knew that had been part of why he had been given the chance to train as an idol in the first place too, though it had not been enough, not even combined with talent and hard work. But this Yibo, in the painting, was different somehow.

His eyes were shining, and his neck bent at an angle that he remembered had made his muscles ache as he posed, but made it look long and elegant. His slightly curly hair was tousled, not in the neat perfect styling he so often went for, but more natural and soft. His mouth was open just a sliver, a smile pulling on one corner of his lips. There was sunlight hitting him, like a golden glow, and despite knowing that he’d been uncomfortable physically at the time, he looked so _at ease_ , like he belonged.

And in the lower corner, he found the word ”future” and a date that placed the painting to when he’d perhaps just sent in his application to NUS.

When Xiao Zhan’s gentle voice called out to him moments later he quickly wiped the tears from his eyes and responded.

”I’m here,” he said, and found he meant it with his whole being. He was there. Far away from anything he’d ever considered home. _With Xiao Zhan._

☙☙☙

The realisation came slowly, and when it finally hit him, when he finally leaned forward and pushed his lips against Xiao Zhan’s, it felt like the most obvious thing in the world. His whole chest screamed with the question of why he’d never done it before, never felt the soft warmth of Xiao Zhan’s lips under his own. Why his fingers had never tangled in Xiao Zhan’s hair like this. Why he’d never felt Xiao Zhan’s hands wrap around his arms this way before.

Xiao Zhan let out a small surprised gasp, pulled back and whispered his name like a question. But Yibo caught the edge of hurt, of desperation, in his voice.

”Zhan-ge,” he whispered, pushing closer, so he could flip his leg over Xiao Zhan’s, mirroring the way he had once before, in a different time.

”Yibo, you—,” Xiao Zhan started again, and Yibo knew his words would be a repeat too. That Xiao Zhan would never take anything from him that Yibo himself did not want to give. Knew that even if he never did, Xiao Zhan would treasure him.

But there were lines between people, keeping them separate. They took different shapes, they changed, sometimes blurring sometimes strengthening, and Yibo had stayed in his own lane for so long. He’d stayed behind that bar counter, he’d stayed as the door closed behind her, he’d made his own space, staying separated by cigarette scented walls.

But Yibo knew that if one day things would shift again, and Xiao Zhan would be the one closing a door behind him, then Yibo would once again regret not having kissed those lips. The lips of the man he knew cared about him so deeply.

So he leaned forward again, forehead resting against Xiao Zhan’s, and spoke softly.

”I want to. I want to kiss you.”

Again, his name was like a question, but the hand on his arm moved up his shoulder to his neck. Yibo leaned into it, the hand almost cool against his skin made sticky by the humid air. Cool and… almost hopeful.

”Yibo,” Xiao Zhan whispered again and Yibo found he loved it. Loved the way his name sounded on Xiao Zhan’s lips. He’d heard it countless times, yet never like this.

Never quite with such unguarded adoration.

”Zhan-ge,” he whispered back. ”Please kiss me.”

Xiao Zhan did.

And somehow, it was almost easier to breathe, when they breathed the same air.

☙☙☙

Yibo always remembered the times when work went later than normal, when some high profile customer would take far too long to finish their last drink, and the last bus would have long since left. There were plenty of nights he spent curled up on the sofa in the backroom of their bar, when other options would require dipping into his personal savings.

The ones he remembered were the ones she’d stayed with him, sitting to the side at the bar counter, waiting out the end of the night with him. The nights he’d let her have the sofa, and he’d woken up with even more of a back-ache from sleeping sitting, half draped over the side of the same sofa. The ones where she’d stayed, so he wouldn’t have to spend the night alone in a dark bar.

He had never thought to wonder what he kept her away from those nights.

Nor did he wonder about Xiao Zhan’s feelings, the time or two he sought solace in the man’s apartment, after some other man had felt his materialistic contributions deserved a bit more than Yibo felt prepared to provide. Before Xiao Zhan, he’d even walked through the cold Beijing night for hours to reach home, rumpled and aching.

But after Xiao Zhan, he’d found a convertible sofa, a warm blanket and a cup of tea. A light that was left on for him, and no questions asked.

Of course, Xiao Zhan hadn’t always been in Beijing when Yibo would have benefitted from it, and those times he preferred the man would never hear about. Just like Zhou Xun had not always been there, when the darkness of the back room had closed in on him.

☙☙☙

There was a small bakery in one of the malls Yibo sometimes walked through on his way from the MRT station, towards Xiao Zhan’s condo after his lectures. He’d walk through there to get to enjoy the cooler air for as long as possible, before walking up the roads leading to areas that he would never not feel out of place in, not even decked in brand clothing from head to toe. Somehow, that all still felt performative, fake, even though he had been covered in money that wasn’t his own for years, even though he may or may not have spent more and more time there, with Xiao Zhan, surrounded by luxury.

The bakery was tucked away next to a hip bubble tea shop, and it had been pure coincidence that he had walked in there in the first place. But once inside, he had been greeted in a familiar and homely accent, by an old lady he had since learned hailed from the same parts of China that he himself did.

And maybe it was all imagination brought out by that tiny connection, but her egg tarts did always taste like the home he remembered, long since lost.

It was only fitting then, that he would eat them with a man he had started considering his home.

☙☙☙

Xiao Zhan’s hands were gentle. Yibo loved the way they’d stroke and brush through his hair, undoing the small ponytail he now kept it in. He loved the way they’d rest on his shoulder when Yibo would be hunched over his studies, and the man would come to offer a cup of tea. He loved the way they held brushes and pens, as the man worked on his art. He loved the soft way they typed, on his sleek laptop late into the night, never running out of emails to send.

And he loved the way they felt on his skin, careful yet determined, like they were teetering on the edge between treating Yibo as something precious, breakable— and wanting to let all the force that Yibo could feel buzzing under the man’s skin out.

And when he finally did, when the last hesitations between them were torn down, Yibo found himself melting under the man’s bold touch— or perhaps evaporating, into the air, spreading into the atmospheric field of Xiao Zhan, and becoming one with it.

☙☙☙

Yibo had long since lost count of the letters, still coming and going at varying pace. Sometimes only weeks would pass, and sometimes months, but he never doubted that she would reply, not once.

She knew now that he lived with someone else. As he’d given her Xiao Zhan’s --now also his own-- address to send future letters to, her response had left Yibo’s heart aching.

“Good. Loneliness never suited you.”

The letters filled his desk drawer little by little, and then one day, the one sentence that Yibo would admit to have doubted would ever arrive did actually arrive. Zhou Xun would come to Singapore. She would come visit. Just like she had said, in that moment when their bar counter had grown into a wall, separating them, already some three years earlier.

She would come visit, and she wanted to see him.

☙☙☙

He had considered dressing up, he had thought about what to wear for so long that Xiao Zhan had laughed at him and Yibo had been forced to swat at him, friendly punches leading to kisses and delays. Then he had styled his hair back and forth, eyes scrutinising himself in the mirror and for the first time wondering if his hair was too long. He had changed his earrings three times.

All this, to eventually settle on the same type of comfortable shirt with the sleeves rolled up that he wore every day. The same knee length, neat shorts he’d worn even to business dinners. And the same loose and messy ponytail that Xiao Zhan never failed to compliment. Just him, the everyday Yibo.

That was what she’d get.

And when he found her, already seated in the restaurant he had suggested for their meeting, she looked like everything he remembered, yet so different.

Her hair was loose and barely shoulder length, wispy and free and framing her now older but still just as beautiful face. She smiled in that soft way that made her eyes shine, and stood up. “Yibo,” she said, and so he was enveloped in a warm, tight hug, and something dislodged itself inside him, as his fingers clung to her against his will, and his whispered “Xun-jie” cracked on his tongue.

“Yibo,” she said again, and the moment could have lasted years yet never been long enough. But even those few seconds were perfect.

They sat, they drank and they ate, and though Yibo had written so many letters, sharing stories in person was different. There was less time to consider, less time to pick and choose and _hide_. He was broken open, like layers of protection were peeled off of him, and the words were free to tumble out. And free to listen to hers, to take them all in and keep them inside.

“You look happy,” she said eventually, and Yibo stopped, hand freezing on the cocktail glass in front of him.

Happy.

For a moment, he let himself think about it. He thought about how he still considered himself to be on a journey, not there just yet, how he still hadn’t completed what he came there for, and how happiness had always been something beyond that.

But then he thought about Xiao Zhan, all dressed up in his business suit underneath a pink apron as he made breakfast that same morning. He thought of the friends he’d made, the ones he would dance with, the ones he would study with, and the ones who would always ask him to bring his ‘handsome boyfriend’ along. He thought of the two egg tarts the old lady would always keep for him, to bring home. And he thought of Xiao Zhan’s warm arms as he’d return from his frequent trips to Beijing, and hold Yibo like they’d been apart for years.

And so he slowly nodded.

“I think I am. Happy.”

And she smiled again, that wide, beautiful smile he had always adored, and placed her fingers gently over his, connected on the foot of a cocktail glass.

“Good. Me too,” she said, and Yibo grinned back.

☙☙☙

“This song is for me,” she had said that last night. “And also for the future you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on twitter: [ @eyesintensify ](https://twitter.com/eyesintensify)


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